For most people living in the Western world, Chinese remains as one of the most difficult languages for them to learn and comprehend. Contrary to Japanese and Korean, which structurally speaking are no easier than Chinese, Chinese has yet to be romanized into having a Roman alphabet like the Latin languages. Thus to Westerners, Chinese remains structurally and functionally as an incoherent language as every Chinese character stands alone and bears no relationship whatsoever to other characters in spelling, pronunciation and meaning. It is interesting to note that although the major portion of the Japanese language has been Romanized, namely the Hiragana and the Katagana, the remaining 17% of the language, which comprises Kanji or Chinese characters, has not. For this reason, the Kanji part of the Japanese language remains as a major challenge for Westerners to master the language. Even native school children in Japan find the learning of Kanji especially difficult in their Japanese language curriculum.
Today in the United States where the country is literally a melting pot of people from all over the world, of different races, color, creed and cultural background, there is a trend developing among some of its citizenry, especially young children, trying to learn a second language besides their native tongue, namely English. People in the world have always attributed the greatness of the United States to its diverse cross-section of its citizens. Over time, each group of immigrants contributes its own strong character traits, cultural habits, special know-how, native customs and history to America. Almost all these immigrants and their off springs subsequently speak more than one language as they pick up English as their second language. In many parts of the United States today, especially in the Southwest, Spanish is spoken almost as frequently as English itself. It is also a well-known fact that by the year ˜2025,the Caucasian American population will fall for the first time below 50%. Spanish American will constitute more than 35%, followed by Blacks of ˜17% and Asians of ˜10%.
It is most unfortunate, however, that among some groups of American minorities, in particular the Chinese, more and more second generation citizens, especially young adults, have pretty much abandoned the effort of learning their native tongue. There could be a number of reasons leading to this rather sad and unexpected situation. The reason that stands out the most among others is the difficulty of the language itself. Most parents of second generation Chinese American children have difficulties with the English language. Although Chinese is therefore mostly spoken at home for these children, it is a far cry from following the discipline and hard work that are needed to learn this language at home from their parents. Meanwhile these children quickly learn and master English at school. Thus the situation is not unlike what water generally does, namely to go in the direction of least resistance, or downwards. They therefore much prefer to simply speak English and forget about the Chinese language altogether.
This prevailing situation no doubt is difficult to reverse overnight, but it is by no means impossible. Nevertheless, some clever ideas have to come forward in order to convince these second generation Chinese American children not to abandon their native tongue. One of the ideas is of course through education. American societal value at large must be taught to these children. They must be told of their society's diverse mixture of inhabitants and the role that each minority group has to play in order to maintain American world leadership in so many areas as freedom, human rights, science and technology, to name just a few. They must be constantly reminded the fact that minority groups that make up the American society as a whole must contribute their special and unique cultural values back to same. Before they can do that they must first learn their native language along with their cultural background. Only through their contribution back to the American society can America continues to stay strong and be respected as a nation throughout the globe.
Another idea is to come up with tools for them to learn the language easier and with a lot of fun. Such a tool could be one or more well-thought-out language games so that they can both enjoy and learn the language as they play these games. However, despite the fact that China is now undergoing rapid modernization, and it has over one billion people, and thus is playing an increasingly important role in the global economy, its language still remains difficult to learn, and there is a long-felt need for games and methods that will help people learn the Chinese language. It is this glaring need to which the present invention is directed.